FanHouse 2008 09NhlSeasonPreviews

Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.

Who's In: Marian Hossa, F (UFA, Pit), Ty Conklin, G (UFA, Pit)

Who's Out: Dominik Hasek (retirement), Dallas Drake (retirement)

What's Changed: Much to the chagrin of fans across the League, the defending Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Red Wings only got better during the off-season as they landed arguably the biggest name on the free agent market, Marian Hossa.

Formerly a member of Detroit's adversary in the Stanley Cup Finals, the Pittsburgh Penguins, Hossa left millions on the table with teams around the League in order to don the Winged Wheel and contribute to the repeat effort. Hossa is slated to start the season on the top line with Tomas Holmstrom and Pavel Datsyuk. Hossa and Datsyuk have been unable to gain too much familiarity, however, as Datsyuk has been sidelined for much of the pre-season with a groin injury.

The Hossa acquisition may make the annual split up of Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg stick for the first time. Head coach Mike Babcock has Zetterberg centering a line with Johan Franzen and Jiri Hudler, and there is little reason to believe that group won't pan out. Zetterberg and Franzen are in contract years, while Hudler will look to maintain his spot outside the fourth line doghouse. On paper, Detroit may have the best top two lines in the League. They'll certainly have the two most defensively responsible scoring lines.

Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.

Who's In: Alex Tanguay, F (Trade-CGY), Georges Laraque, F (FA-PIT); Marc Denis, G (FA-TB); Robert Lang, F (Trade-CHI)

Who's Out: Mikhail Grabovski, F (Trade-TOR); Michael Ryder, F (FA-BOS); Mark Streit, D (FA-NYI)

What's Changed: The Canadiens are hoping that a couple minor tweaks and the experience of last year's run combine to make this year's team all the more dangerous. Montreal made no changes to their defensive top six, they signed Denis only to compete for the backup job behind Carey Price, and the top forwards are all back.

Honestly, Montreal shouldn't have to change much. Price melted down in the playoff series against Philadelphia (more on that in a bit), and the defense didn't play terribly well. However, the Canadiens fielded a pretty young team, had a great season, and they return practically everyone while making a couple of potentially significant additions.

Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.

Who's In: Miroslav Satan, F (FA-NYI), Ruslan Fedotenko, F (FA-NYI), Matt Cooke, F (FA-WAS), Eric Godard, F(FA-CGY), Janne Pesonen, F (FA-Kärpät, Finland)

Who's Out: Marian Hossa, F (FA-DET), Ryan Malone, F (FA-TBA), Jarkko Ruutu, F (FA-OTT), Gary Roberts, F (FA-TBA), Georges Laraque, F (FA-MTL), Ty Conklin, G (FA-DET), Adam Hall, F (FA-TBA)

What's Changed: Everything is different but nothing has changed in Pittsburgh. Hossa, Malone, Roberts, and Ruutu are gone, but this was Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin's team when they were all in Pittsburgh and the team still belongs to them with those four gone. A lot has been made about the guys that have departed, especially Malone and Hossa, but Malone's breakout was greatly aided by Malkin and the Penguins earned the second seed in the playoffs last year almost entirely without Hossa's help. At this point, there's no use in talking about the guys that are gone because they're gone.

Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.

Who's In: Andrew Brunette, F (FA-COL); Owen Nolan, F (FA-CGY); Marc-Andre Bergeron, D (Trade-ANH); Marek Zidlicky, D (Trade-NSH); Antti Miettinen, F (FA-DAL); Craig Weller, F (FA-PHX)

Who's Out: Brian Rolston, F (FA-NJ); Pavol Demitra, F (FA-VAN); Todd Fedoruk, F (FA-PHX)

What's Changed: Hopefully, the Wild found some stability. General manager Doug Risebrough acknowledged he made a mistake by employing ten players in contract years last year. As a result, there was a lot of player movement over the summer. Rolston should have been re-signed during the previous off-season. Once it was clear he would test free agency, it was also clear he wouldn't be back.

Risebrough tried to make up for his blunders (too many free agents and not re-signing Rolston) by taking a stab at Marian Hossa, placing a bid for Kristian Huselius, and also making a play at a contract extension for Marian Gaborik. None of these moves have been successful, however the potential for a Gaborik deal is far from dead as of this writing.

(Of course, this hasn't stopped fans of other teams from dreaming.)

Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.

Who's In: Karl Alzner, D (Draft-2007); Jose Theodore, G (FA-COL)

Who's Out: Matt Cooke, F (FA-PIT); Steve Eminger, D (Trade-PHI); Cristobal Huet, G (FA-CHI); Olaf Kolzig, G (FA-TB)

What's Changed: Last year at this time, the big change in D.C. was in the atmosphere surrounding the team. As we wrote then, "it's once again fun to be a Washington Capital and a Washington Capitals fan. After a handful of decidedly lean years, players and management alike can barely contain smiles (if they even bother trying to) as they prepare for the season that lies ahead."

One year later the big change is the addition of Ice Girls in what will be expected from the current Caps squad.

Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.

Who's In: Brian Rolston, Bobby Holik

Who's Out: Vitaly Vishnevski, Sergei Brylin, Arron Asham, New York's Sean Avery signed in Dallas (probably worth mentioning)

What's Changed: Not a whole lot has changed in New Jersey, although it was interesting to see Lou Lamoriello open up the wallet during the off-season. The Devils brought back both Brian Rolston and Bobby Holik this summer in an effort to turn the clock back to 2000 (can Ken Daneyko and Scott Stevens be far behind?). Sources tell me that later this week Lou will unveil his plans to build a time machine in the basement of the Prudential Center. Actually the reasoning behind the signings was more than likely to, you know, improve the team but it's fun to imagine what schemes Lou is thinking up.

The team had a heck of a season last year, when most people were picking them to take a step back. Despite being in a tough division, the Devils managed 99 points and the third most points in the conference. They also managed to lose to the Islanders and Rangers a total of 13 times last year, which doesn't make any sense at all considering they only lost to the rest of the NHL 16 times. Obviously, they're going to have to focus a bit more on their tri-state area rivalry games.

The Devils are going into this season about the same they went in last year, except this time no one is sleeping on them. Despite a defense that leaves a bit to be desired, they still have Marty Brodeur and as long as they have him and he isn't aging horribly, you can't leave the Devils out. I apologize, because you're going to hear that line about a million times this year, and you've probably heard it a million times already. But it's true. He's still the best player on the team and posted a 2.17 GAA and .920 SPCT last season. Pretty sick numbers, to be sure. Oh and he's 36, which in goaltender years is almost unheard of. A few more years and the shelter is going to have to put him down for his own good.

Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.

Who's In: Markus Naslund, Nikolai Zherdev, Dmitri Kalinin.

Who's Out: Martin Straka, Jaromir Jagr, Brendan Shanahan (could still return), Sean Avery, Fedor Tyutin.

What's Changed: Another year and it's still the same old Rangers -- spend, spend, spend. In February the team signed stud netminder Henrik Lundqvist to a six-year deal that came out to about $6.5 million per. During the off-season they nabbed UFAs Wade Redden and Markus Naslund for the low price of $11.5 million this season. Not that this is a bad tactic, they did pretty well this past season with their spending spree from the summer of 2007 (Gomez, Drury). But, in all serious, not a whole lot has changed in terms of the philosophy in New York. The faces, however, are a different story.

With Jaromir Jagr in Russia, Brendan Shanahan in limbo, and the departure of Martin Straka, the Rangers are going to be without three of their top five scorers from a year ago. The trio combined for 158 points last season, something the Rangers will dearly miss. The addition of Naslund and Nikolai Zherdev will help ease the stress, but it will certainly be interesting to see how the new faces, and the loss of some old faces, pans out.

Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.

Who's In: A pair of ex-Islanders and no one else who is very exciting; Arron Asham, Bryan Berard, Ossi Vaananen, Glen Metropolit. Unlike last year, the Flyers did not make a big splash this summer, mainly due to cap concerns.

Who's Out: Salary dumps galore; RJ Umberger, Vaclav Prospal (who was a rental), Jim Dowd, Jaroslav Modry, Jason Smith.

What's Changed: Not a whole lot. The Flyers are basically returning the same team that finished sixth in the conference with 95 points a year ago minus RJ Umberger and his 50 points. Jeff Carter, Joffrey Lupul and Randy Jones all received contract extensions to push this team closer to the cap than any other in the NHL, according to NHLNumbers.com. But hey, at least Derian Hatcher's $3.5 mil will only count for one more year!

This team is basically going to stay the way it is for this season unless they unload some money. When they locked up $37 million on six players, you could could kind of see all this coming. Not that they're a bad team -- not at all -- the Flyers just happen to be locked into their current roster for the time being.

Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.

Who's In: Ryan Jones, F (trade, Min)

Who's Out: Chris Mason, G (trade, Stl), Alexander Radulov, F (likely gone, KHL), Marek Zidlicky, D (trade, Min), Darcy Hordichuk, F (trade, Car)

What's New: Relatively speaking, the quick answer is not a whole heck of a lot. The Predators really did not do much on what you might call the positive side of things this off-season aside from re-signing players like Martin Erat, Ryan Suter, Shea Weber, Dan Ellis, Rich Peverly, and Jerred Smithson. So by and large the band that played to an 8th place finish in the West remains together. Two departed members stand out, however.

Of the two, Marek Zidlicky is definitely gone. He was traded to Minnesota in exchange for former college star Ryan Jones and a second-rounder. The move made Nashville's defense even younger, but the group remains solid with the retention of Suter and Weber. The team is counting on Ville Koistinen to quicken his pace of improvement with Zidlicky gone.

While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.

Who's In: Michael Ryder, RW (UFA, Mon); Blake Wheeler, RW (UFA, Phx)

Who's Out: Alex Auld, G (UFA, Ott); Glen Metropolit, F (UFA, Phi); Glen Murray, RW (buyout)

What's Changed: Not at ton. For the first time in a while, the Bruins will have quite a bit of stability on the roster, with the most obvious change being that Ryder will slip into a scoring-line role on the right wing where Murray played last season.

A bigger boost to the offense, however, will come from a healthy Patrice Bergeron (pictured). He missed all but 10 games last season after taking a blindside hit from Philadelphia's Randy Jones, but is a solid 70-point man if he can make it back into the lineup full time. (Bergeron impressed already in preseason, racking up four points in the Bruins' first exhibition game against Montreal on Monday night.)

Elsewhere up front, there should be some solid progression from within for players like David Krejci, Milan Lucic and Vladimir Sobotka, who may not be household names but are ready for more minutes than they played as rookies last season.